on Fashionising.com.

At first glance, things look modern. Crisp white outfits, wild wet hair and mountains of white macaroons. But look closely and you’ll see a whole other era through the looking glass; a window to a Victorian world of high collars and neat chignons and the kind of fruit bowls immortalised in still life by the Dutch masters. The new world mirrors the old – or…

sass & bide have built a brand out of an aesthetic that has no other name, other than to say it’s – well – sass & bide. Part of that aesthetic is a certain toughness, an insouciance; qualities you’d expect them to extend into new sub-lines of the brand, like their newly released lingerie collection. And for the most part that’s exactly what they do.…

Is it another example of the death of department stores, just a further sign of the economic woes impacting upon fashion retail, or just proof that a brand name can’t mean everything to everyone? As Australia’s Myer department chain looks to shutter stores, our money is on the latter.

There isn’t a better way to feel like a celebrity than to be engulfed by camera flashes, especially when real celebrities surround you. It was more than a regular weeknight at sass and bide’s Sydney flagship store, as a fashionably cool crowd attended the launch of the sass and bide sunglasses collection.

If nothing else, then Australia’s departmental store battle has proved one fact – get a stunning model to prance down the catwalk and you’ll get smiling faces walking out the door. With a glitzy show, department store giant Myer did just that as it unveiled its spring / summer 2011 offering in Sydney last night. Brand ambassador and face of the store Jennifer Hawkins led…

As it is in many a part of the world, fashion retail in Australia is in trouble. So much so that some commentators have stated that the future will see the death of retail. Personally I see that as a melodramatic: retail has existed for millennia and isn’t about to disappear. Rather, I firmly believe that the issue, and the debate that comes with it, is…

For a good part of the year the focus on Australian label sass & bide has been on anything but their clothing; instead speculation on their business strategies took precedence over the brand’s creative direction. The ongoing cold war between Australia’s biggest department chain stores moved on to a new level when sass & bide decided to effectively swap teams, severing an exclusive contract with…

Updated: You’ll find the opening collection photos and look book at the bottom of this article. The combination of the quality of Sydney’s new inner-city Westfield along with the fact that Zara opened in that city first may have removed the city of Melbourne’s right to self-label itself as “Australia’s fashion capital”, but the impact of Zara’s first Melbourne store upon the city’s retail scene…

Yet another reason to look forward to our visit to Italy in the new year (as well as, of course, Pitti and the Milan Fashion Week shows) – it’s another impressive Zara store for us to drop some pennies at. Not letting the heritage of the 120 year old Palazzo Bocconi building get in the way of innovation (a lesson MYER Melbourne could learn plenty…

The proliferation of fake Louis Vuitton goods is declining. 90%. We’re told that in 2004, 2 million fake Louis Vuitton bags were seized by customs in the US – this year that figure has decreased 90% to 200,000 bags.